- published: 04 Dec 2013
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In biogeography, the Mediterranean Basin (also known as the Mediterranean region) refers to the lands around the Mediterranean Sea that have a Mediterranean climate, with mild, rainy winters and hot, dry summers, which supports characteristic Mediterranean forests, woodlands, and scrub vegetation. As a rule of thumb, the Mediterranean Basin is the Old World region where olive trees grow. However olive trees grow in other corners of the world which have a Mediterranean climate, and there are many areas around the Mediterranean Sea which do not have Mediterranean climate and where olive trees cannot grow.
The Mediterranean basin covers portions of three continents, Europe, Asia, and Africa.
Europe lies to the north, and three large Southern European peninsulas, the Iberian Peninsula, Italian Peninsula, and the Balkan Peninsula, extend into the Mediterranean-climate zone. A system of folded mountains, including the Pyrenees dividing Spain from France, the Alps dividing Italy from Central Europe, the Dinaric Alps along the eastern Adriatic, and the Balkan and Rhodope mountains of the Balkan Peninsula divide the Mediterranean from the temperate climate regions of Western and Central Europe.